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Melinda.”
    Off went Geoff to the chicken farm and Barbara Carter, whom he had married in January, but thinking what a nice pretty girl Melinda Coverdale was—that hat, my God!—and thinking too of walking with her years before by the river Beal and of innocent kisses exchanged to the rushing music of the mill.
    Melinda swung up the long drive, under the chestnuts hung with their cream and bronze candles, round the house, and in by the gun-room door. Giles was sitting at the kitchen table reading the last chapter of the Poona book.
    “Hi, Step.”
    “Hallo,” said Giles. He no longer used the nickname that oncehad served for each to address to the other. It was incongruous with his Byronic fantasies, though these always crumbled when Melinda appeared in the flesh. She had quite a lot of well-distributed flesh, and red cheeks, and an aggressive healthiness. Also she bounced. Giles sighed, scratched his spots, and thought of being in India with a begging bowl.
    “How did you get red ink on your jeans?”
    “I didn’t. I’ve dyed them but the dye didn’t take.”
    “Mad,” said Melinda. She sailed off, searched for her father and stepmother, found them on the top floor putting finishing touches to Miss Parchman’s room. “Hallo, my darlings.” Each got a kiss, but George got his first. “Daddy, you’ve got a suntan. If I’d known you were coming home so early I’d have phoned T.B.C. from the station. Geoff Baalham gave me a lift and he said his auntie Eva’ll bring the eggs first thing on Monday and you’re giving our new housekeeper the old telly. I said I never heard anything so fascist in all my life. Next thing you’ll be saying she’s got to eat on her own in the kitchen.”
    George and Jacqueline looked at each other.
    “Well, of course.”
    “How awful! No wonder the revolution’s coming.
A bas les aristos
. D’you like my hat, Jackie? I bought it in the Oxfam shop. Fifty p. God, I’m
starving
. We haven’t got anyone awful coming tonight, have we? No curs or cairns or roisterers?”
    “Now, Melinda, I think that’s enough.” The words were admonitory but the tone was tender. George was incapable of being really cross with his favourite child. “We’re tolerant of your friends and you must be tolerant of ours. As a matter of fact, the Roystons are dining with us.”
    Melinda groaned. Quickly she hugged her father before he could expostulate. “I shall go and phone Stephen or Charles or someone and
make
him take me out. But I tell you what, Jackie, I’ll be back in time to help you clear up. Just think, you’ll never have to do it again after tomorrow when Parchment Face comes.”
    “Melinda …” George began.
    “She has got rather a parchment look to her face,” said Jacqueline, and she couldn’t help laughing.
    So Melinda went to the cinema in Colchester with Stephen Crutchley, the doctor’s son. The Roystons came to dine at Lowfield Hall, and Jacqueline said, Wait till tomorrow. Don’t you envy me, Jessica? But what will she be like? And will she really come up to these glowing expectations? It was George who wondered. Please God, let her be the treasure Jackie thinks she is.
Schadenfreude
made Sir Robert and Lady Royston secretly hope she wouldn’t be, but cut on the same lines as their Anneliese, their Birgit, and that best-forgotten Spanish couple.
    Time will show. Wait till tomorrow.

4
    The Coverdales had speculated about Eunice Parchman’s work potential and her attitude, respectful or otherwise, towards themselves. They had allotted her a private bathroom and a television set, some comfortable chairs and a well-sprung bed rather as one sees that a workhorse has a good stable and manger. They wanted her to be content because if she were contented she would stay. But they never considered her as a person at all. Not for them as they got up on Saturday, May 9, E-Day indeed, any thoughts as to what her past had been, whether she were nervous about coming, whether she